Diploid spermatids: a manifestation of spermatogenic impairment in XOSxr and T31H/+ male mice.

Microdensitometry of Feulgen-stained spermatogenic cell preparations from six XOSxr and four T31H/+ male mice revealed large numbers of spermatids with a diploid amount of DNA. In XOSxr mice, where the diploid spermatids usually constituted the majority of the spermatid population, there were large differences from mouse to mouse in the proportion of diploid spermatids (range, 35%-94%). There were large losses of both haploid and diploid spermatids during spermiogenesis, and the later condensed spermatids of both types were grossly misshapen. It is suggested that the omission of one meiotic division, and the other spermiogenic anomalies may be manifestations of a meiotic "quality control" mechanism that destroys the products of those pachytene spermatocytes which have unsynapsed or incompletely synapsed chromosomes.